International conference on Climate Change in relation to Water and Environment (I3CWE-2015)

Department of Civil Engineering

DUET - Gazipur, Bangladesh

DISASTER INDUCED RURAL MIGRATION AND ADAPTATION IN URBAN SPACE: A

CASE STUDY OF NATUN BAZAR CHOR BOSTI, KHULNA.
K. N. H.Shezan1*; M. Y.Ali2 and M. M. Morshed3
ABSTRACT: This research investigates how rural people adapt to the urban space in natun bazar
chor bosti. River erosion and water logging in the southern regions of Bangladesh are outcomes of
climate change. Lives and livelihoods have been devastated and people are uprooted from their
homesteads. The usual destinations of these migrants are bostees in big cities. Khulna, as a regional
hub, is one of the biggest recipients of these migrants. Natun bazar chor slum is one of the biggest
bostees in Khulna. About 10 thousand people live in this slum. Among them 2,200 are listed voter.
How is the legality of bosti defined? How do they secure space and livelihoods in cities? How do
they improve their living condition? How do they use their voting power to their advantage?
These are some of the issues addressed in this paper. From a comprehensive field survey and
satellite image analysis, this paper explores the politics of urban space and their evolution over time.
We found that early migrants in the study area became the eminent domain of exercising power to
their advantage but not the new ones. Subsequently, this paper addresses some other urban
stakeholders, e.g., the government organizations, NGOs and bosti organizations. Juxtaposition of
these organizations and entities create a complex mechanism of space management that is hardly
convention.
Keywords: Bosti, Climate change, Migration, Urban space, Politics.

1. Introduction
Due to global warming and manmade disasters, climate patterns are mutating all over the world
without any previous notice, which have indubitably become one of the concerning menace for
the forthcoming world in the near future. Within this existing earth, a beautiful country named
Bangladesh situated in the South Asia is not apart from this constant jeopardy of the climate
change. Because of having an unique geographic position, in context of climate change Huq and
Ayers (2008), in their paper identified Bangladesh as one of the most vulnerable countries in the
world (Martin, Kang, Billah, Siddiqui, Black and Kniveton, 2013). Bangladesh is going through
many natural disasters generating from the consequences of climate changes. From Bangladesh
Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (2008), it is perceived that the frequent disasters like
floods, tropical cyclones, storm surges and droughts, are predicted to be astringent in this country
within the upcoming time frame. According to the paper entitled Climate Displacement in
Bangladesh by displacement solution (May, 2012), across this country when the socio-economic
environment is concatenated with the frequently occurring acrid natural disasters, often leads to
loss of life, lands and homes as well as demolition of economic assets, which impacts negatively
on the lives and livelihoods of the affected people. These devastating disasters are taking away all
the assets and shelters even this take down prolonged to the very last assets of the affected
people. Day by day throughout the country the numbers of this affected people are increasing as
these disasters are visiting frequently throughout the season after season. As these people lose
everything even the jobs and especially the farmers who lose their land and crops their survival
fall into challenging whirlpool from where retrieval has become impossible.
Kazi Nazmul Haque Shezan, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, kazi_shezan@yahoo.com
2
Md.Yusuf Ali, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, yusuf.1017054@gmail.com
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Dr. Md. M. Morshed, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, manjurmorshedkhan@gmail.com

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To survive this incident, a huge number of these affected people sail their life boat towards a
place where they have a chance to manage livelihood and the big cities are the hope for this.
Through the recorded history it is realized that many social, economic, political as well as
disaster related reasons pushing affected people to displace themselves through migration, which
leading to the concept that migration and displacement has become a common phenomenon in
Bangladesh, where the more recent circumstances are suggesting that this country is going to
undergo through a massive external and internal migration and for which she is inadequately
prepared (Shamsuddoha, Khan, Raihan and Hossain, 2012). In the paper entitled Bangladesh
Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (2009) it is revealed that in the near future almost 20
million people are carrying the threat of migration, which will add a huge pressure generating
from the environment refugees settlements to the overpopulated Bangladesh. Among the disaster
prone southern areas of Bangladesh, Khulna is one of the major urban area where it also suffers
from the effect of the climate change but not as severe like other parts. So people from disaster
induced area should migrate to Khulna for surviving and discovering better livelihood. But
Khulna has not enough ability to support these huge number of people through supplying
employment opportunities and living places. This is the reason why a very small number of the
migrants displaced to Khulna rather than other parts of the country specially Dhaka region. In the
capital city of Bangladesh people have much more opportunity to manage employment and
livelihood than other parts of the country. In the report of IOM (2010) it is observed that about 5
lakh people migrated towards Dhaka from the rural and coastal parts of Bangladesh and in
Dhakas slum around 70 % migrants are the result of any environmental shocks (Rahman,
Chattapadhya, 2013).
Slums of Khulna is the main recipient for all the climate induced people who migrates from
southern part of the country to Khulna. Among these slums Natun bazar chor slum is one of the
biggest slums in Khulna being an inhabitant for ten thousand dwellers where 5% people are
climate induced migrants. The main objective of this paper is to understand the contemporary
situation of climate change and migration in Bangladesh through investigating how is the legality
of Natun Bazar Chor bosti defined? How climate induced migrants and others secure space and
livelihoods in cities? How do they improve their living condition? Who are involved with this
adaptation procedures? How do they use their voting power to their advantage? Is this migration
a react to climate change or a coping mechanism for the climate induced migrants for survival?
2. Methodology and Study area
To derive the desired analysis and results, a survey of 170 people in Natun Bazar Chor bosti was
conducted. For the survey sample size was chosen on the basic of blocks and tenure types so that
the characteristics of any blocks or any tenure types do not remain behind the scene. Sample is
chosen in such manner that the minority group is not excluded from the survey. All types of
houses was under the consideration of the sample survey. Literature review and other analysis in
context of Bangladesh was derived through collecting data from different secondary documents
like papers, journals, thesis etc. For detecting the changes of settlement of the slum, HD satellite
image of Google earth was used and analysis was conducted through ArcMap10.1. This paper is
concerned about the Natun Bazar Chor Bosti near Rupsha Ghat and Natun Bazar, Khulna. The
figure 1 shows the position of the slum in context of Khulna and Bangladesh representing the
migration pattern in Bangladesh.

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Figure 1: Position of the Natun Bazar Chor Slum, Khulna

3. Literature Review
3.1.
Climate
change
The
climate
National
Service
Climate
a
long-term
the statistics of
weather
(including
its
averages).
example,
could show up as
change in climate
normal (expected
average
values for
temperature
and
precipitation) for a given place
time of year,
from one decade to the next

definition
of
change by NOAA
Weather
(2007) is
change is
shift in
the
For
it
a

and

3.2. Adaptation
Smit et al. (2000) described the definition of Adaptation by Burton (1992) as Adaptation to climate is the
process through which people reduce the adverse effects of climate on their health and well-being, and take
advantage of the opportunities that their climatic environment provides. Adaptation involves adjustments to
enhance the viability of social and economic activities and to reduce their vulnerability to climate,
including its current variability and extreme events as well as longer-term climate change (Santiago
Olmos, 2001)

3.3 Migrants
Shamsuddoha, Khan, Raihan and Hossain (2012) in their paper define migration with pulchritude
and the definition collected from the paper is Migrants refer to individuals who have changed
their place of residence either by crossing an international border (international migration) or by
moving within their country of origin to another region, district or municipality (internal
migration). People are normally considered 'migrants' if they remain outside their original place
of residence for a period of at least three months.
3.4 Displacement
Displacement is a type of migration where people are forced to move from one place to another.
When people migrates within their country from one place to another is called internal migration.
4. Climate Change and Related Migration Situation and Pattern in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a low lying country and situated by the bank of the behemoth Bay of Bengal. For
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any reason if the sea level raises another 1 meter from the current level, then 14.8 million people
will lose their lands with estimated area of 29846 sq.km, which will force about 40 million
people to migrate and the migration pattern will be either on the basic of long run or on the
permanent basis (The Daily Star, 2011). Ibid. and National Adaptation Plan of Action (2005)
described that within the last twenty five years Bangladesh has tolerated six acute flood and
among these the flood of 1988 and 1998 all alone respectively caused 2000-6500 and 1100 deaths
which forced almost 45 and 30 million people to displace from those divested places (Mohd.
Atiqueuzzaman Khan, Md. Shamsuddoha, Abdullah Al Helal & Asif Hassan, 2013). Tavares
(2010) in his paper mentioned that in Bangladesh per year external migrants are 600000 and from
the year 1975 to 2009 it is noticed that the urbanization rate is 3.03% being the highest
throughout the world, which is resulted from internal migrations. This phenomenon can be
explained by the shifting characteristics of agriculture to industrial production shifts. Because of
migration, living conditions variation is an added problem to the urban life. In the report of IOM
it is estimated that huge proportion of slum residents in the urban areas had migrated from other
districts. Migrants in slum usually vary from region to region as in Dhaka it is observed 53% and
where in Khulna its 70 %. Every year almost 5 lakh people migrates towards Dhaka due to many
environmental shocks (Richard Marshall and Shibaab Rahman, 2013).
5. Climate change induced migration and adaption in Natun Bazar Chor Slum
Natun bazar chor slum near Rupsha Ghat and Natun bazar is one of the biggest bostees in
Khulna. About 10 thousand people live in this slum. Among them 2,200 are listed voter. Through
secondary document and a sample survey of 170 we found that early migrants in the study area
have become the eminent domain of exercising power to their advantage but not the new ones.
Age of the slum is more than 40 years old and migrants came from southern part of this country.
It is observed that among the migrants 5 percent people were displaced due to climate change
related disasters like Sidr, Ayla, and Flood etc. It is identified from the analysis of the data that
the people migrated here due to climate change are newer comparing to the other families of the
slum. The number of the new migrants in the slum is very low. Through the survey it is identified
that now a days the growth of the slum is very comparing to the past records. About 80 percent
people in this area are living for more than 30 years. Along the past decade the spatial growth of
the slum is very low which can be evident from the satellite image analysis of the slum showed in
the figure 2.
Figure 2: Changes of built-up area of Natun Bazar Slum area from 2001 to 2014

In the figure 3 it is observed that the increasing of the settlement pattern has deemed within the
last 7 years which is the evidence that recently the settlement is not growing much as before. So
we can conclude that the new comer are lesser in number and it is found through the study that
the climate induced migrants are new comer and they havent enough dominance as the older
residents have.

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Fig 3: Percentage of Builtup Area over time

Percentage

74
72
70
68
66
64
60.97
62
60
58
56
54
2000 2002

72.48
69.92

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

Year

Figure 3: Percentage of builtup area from 2001 to 2014 for change detection
The land of the slum area is divided into two parts and they are land of Government and Cristian
missionary. But the living condition and the social or either the economic condition is not varied
between these two lands settlements. Owner of the houses either purchased the house or built the
house with their own money or through loan and they have no legal right on the land. They are
bound to pay 200tk tax per year for house as they have holding number. The houses are either one
or two storied. Almost all houses are tin shaded and roff of 1 st floor of two storied houses are
made of wood and bamboo.
Now in context of climate induced migrants, some of them had lost their whole property, some
had lost house and accessories and these types of people have permanently shifted to the slum
and many of this migrants lost their source of livelihood and families which forced them to
displace here.Through the survey migration due to slow onset disasters - such as increasing soil
and water salinity in coastal areas due to sea-level rise was found zero. All of the migrants are the
result of sudden onset disasters - such as cyclones, tidal water incursion and river erosion in lowlying coastal districts. About 60 percent of the climate induced migrants here are severely
affected by Cyclone Sidr in November 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009. Among these 60 percent
migrants almost every family has lost their whole property and some of them are planning to
return to their origin place after managing enough money for resettlement. About 20 percent
migrants have migrated due to the river erosion. Their houses, Farm lands were vanished by the
consequences of river erosion.
Some of climate induced migrants have relatives in the slum and managed to obtain a living place
for first time and then they either bought or built the house through loan. Others had to live here
as paying guest. After some year almost every family of these migrants managed their own space
as the value of the sold houses were cheap. People who sold the houses has shifted from this slum
for better life to other residential area like Lobonchora near Rupsha Bridge. Rural climate
induced migrants are coping with the new environment and for helping them to adapt the life here
different Government and Non-Government organizations are working and helping them through
many means but no special treatment for the climate induced migrants are found in the study.
When the migrants first arrived here the male family members engaged themselves in day labor
works and the female contributed to the family income through working on shrimp head
separation industry and working on houses after achieving enough loyalty among the slum
dwellers. But the slum environment and living condition was a great challenge for them at first as
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they were from crystal clear natural environment contained places but later they become used to
it. There was also a very big issue for these migrants is space. Average family member of the
migrants are 5-6 and they had only one room to live. Like other slum dwellers they also managed
some money and expanded their houses vertically by the help of very cheap materials like 2 nd
hand bamboo, wood etc. which increased their living space up to 70 percent. This idea is found in
the rural areas and known as Pataton.
To cope with this new environment and social life and to adapt these, only their own effort is not
enough. This is the time where NGO and Government organization are needed to be mentioned.
Formal mayor of Khulna City Corporation helped the whole slum people to manage their life
here and also to survive after 3 huge fire incidents which was possible for the voting power of the
slum dwellers. Recently there was a clash between the land owner purchased lands from Cristian
missionary with the slum dwellers. The owner wanted to evict them but by the help of the formal
mayor though initiatives taken by KCC that effort went to vain. To sustain in this area
government is helping them indirectly and in return they are paying tax. Without the support of
the government it would be a very tough job for the slum people to sustain. Different NGO
named ASHA, BRACK, and NOBOLOK etc. helped them through providing money and
different accessories related to household chores, but this helps are much more corruption
induced and the main help from them comes in terms of giving loan.
So the climate induced migrants are coping with this life and adopting this life for their own need
and to survive. Through the study, easily it can be realized that the migration process of these
migrants are not a reaction to the climate change rather than it is adaptation and coping
mechanism to survive.
6. Conclusion
Migration is a natural process and it is noticed throughout the whole living beings from the very
beginning of the time. These migrations were resulted from many reasons with variety of
circumstances where survival was in a great question. Now a days this incident also remains
constant as the very devastating disasters are striking spontaneously throughout the earth. These
natural disasters are caused by the rapid climate changes all over the world. To survive from these
devastating disasters people are migrating and surviving. Bangladesh the land of river is not apart
from this phenomenon.Learning from the field of study over the Natun Bazar Chor bosti it is
observed that people from disaster prone area are migrating towards bigger city rather the smaller
ones as the bigger cities have the capacity to create opportunity for these people for employment.
So it is evident from this study that people from disaster induced places are gathering in big cities
rather than small ones. People are coping with the new environment and adapting through many
difficulties by the indirect help from NGO or Government Organizations. In fine through the
discussion paper can be concluded with the concept that the People are migrating and will
migrate in the future to the bigger cities where they can manage shelter and livelihood as the
climate of the world is shifting. Migration process of these climate induced people is never a
react to the climate change rather than a coping mechanism to sustain and survive.

7. Acknowledgement
First of all we thanks to Allah for granting us to complete this paper without facing any major
problems and constraints as well as we are thankful to our family members for supporting us in
the every aspect of life. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of all the three members of
the group. We are also thankful to those dwellers of the Slum of the study are for helping us
through giving information and making the sample survey easier for us.
8. References
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IOM and other agencies, Joint Position Paper on Cyclone Aila Affected Areas (2010).
Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh,
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